Caretaker Left 93-Year-Old Patient Crying For Help At Bottom Of Stairs

Priscilla Ngwenya is being charged with neglect after she purposely ignored her patient's cries for help as she was sprawled on the floor of her basement.

In a horrifying story of mistreatment, a caretaker has been accused of abandoning a patient suffering from dementia, allowing her to cry out for help after she fell down a flight of stairs.

The caretaker, Priscilla Ngwenya, is alleged to have left her 93-year-old patient lying on the floor of her basement after she had fallen.

The woman, Jessie Mills, suffers from debilitating partial deafness in addition to her dementia and was allegedly left to fend for herself after Ngwenya heard her cries for help but refused to act as she said it is not her company's policy to attempt to lift fallen clients.

Ngwenya continued to let Mills lay there until her neighbors, Kifle Mahomnen and Rosemary Moore, heard Mills' cries and called for an ambulance.

"He walked downstairs towards Jessie's flat and heard a voice say twice, 'I'm not coming down there, Jessie,'" said prosecutor Jonathan Davies during Ngwenya's hearing. "The door was then opened by the defendant, and Mr. Mahomnen asked her what was happening. She said Jessie had fallen down the stairs, and Mr. Mahomnen told her to call 999, and she said 'OK.' She asked him to go and see Jessie, and he said no and that she should go see her as she should be there."

Moore then helped Mills up the stairs and into her room. She later claimed Mills was shaking from the ordeal.

Mills has since passed away, but she suffered regular panic attacks in addition to her dementia and deafness, and she required constant care.

Ngwenya is being charged with one count of willful neglect by a caretaker, but a decision has not yet been reached by the jury.

To neglect someone who has entrusted you with their life is completely indefensible, and to write off your mistreatment as "company policy" is even more despicable.

A caretaker's job, first and foremost, is to care for the patients to whom they are assigned, and Ngwenya failed miserably.